I am rechallenging Georaphia for Round 1 of bsh1's March Beginners' Tournament. The resolution holds clear: Pro shall argue that The Federal Reserve indeed should not be abolished, and Con shall argue that it should.

First of all I want to thank Geographia to accepting this.
Now without further ado, let's begin.

What The Federal Reserve Is:
The central bank of the United States of America.

The Mandate of the Federal Reserve:
According to Investipedia, the duties of the Federal Reserve are:
"1)To promote sustainable growth,
2) To maintain high levels of employment,
3) To stabilitze prices to help preserve the purchasing power of the dollar
4) moderate long-term interest rates.

To Promote Sustainable Growth:
The United States economy is currently the largest national economy
(http://www.imf.org...=)
(http://www.imf.org...)
( http://money.cnn.com...)
These reports show that the Federal Reserve is doing a good job as a Central Bank at mainting the United States as the largest national economy in the World.

To Maintain High Levels of Employment:
According to the BLS, the unemployment rate is currently at 5.5% (http://data.bls.gov...)
This decrease in unemployment shows that the Fed is doing a good job in combatting unemployment

Decline of Banking Failures:
There have been less banking failures with the insitution of the Federal Reserve in 1913 than before.

Necessary for Monterary policy
Monterary policy, the setting of interest rates, has to be set by a Central Bank.
If rates are lower, than an economy expands, if rates are higher, then inflation is curbed. This is good economic policy, as evident by above.
Lack of Sound Alternatives.
While the Fed may have its problems, what is the alternatives? So far, the Fed is doing its job relatively well, if does need change, it needs reform, not abolishment

The Mandate of the Federal Reserve:
According to Investipedia, the duties of the Federal Reserve are:
"1)To promote sustainable growth,
2) To maintain high levels of employment,
3) To stabilitze prices to help preserve the purchasing power of the dollar
4) moderate long-term interest rates.

The leaders of the Fed are not elected

"The leaders of the Fed are not elected. I'm not saying they are cohorts in making a conspiracy to control the world, but that they are not held accountable. [1]"

The leaders of the Fed, are however, selected by the Senate and the President (,http://en.wikipedia.org...) who are elected by United States citizens to appoint government offices such as the Federal Reserve. This selectment system is similiar to the justices Supreme Court, who are selected by the President and the Senate. If a Federal Reserve member is not doing their job, then they go through an impeachment process. (http://en.wikipedia.org...)
Since the leaders of the Fed can be impeached, they are held accountable, just like any other government agency, therefore abolishing the Federal Reserve on this ground is unjustified.

There has been inflation

This is generally known and it shouldn't be contested much.

First off, inlfation is invetiable, according to this website: http://www.economist.com...
Second off, inflation is not a bad thing, as it tends to lead to wage increase and a sign of a growing economy. (http://www.investopedia.com...) What is a bad thing, however, is unexpected hyperiflation, and the Federal Reserve has done a good job in targetting inflation and keeping it in check (ww.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/) thus the Federal Reserve has done its obligation to check inflation.

There has been Several severe economic crisis.

Also shouldn't be contested much. The Fed doesn't seem to be much able to do much in times of recession or depression.

During the Great Depression, the Federal Reserve had to reform in order to more effectively counter the Great Depression. And the situation of the Great Depression improved over time (http://www.u-s-history.com...)
The Federal Reserve did a lot better job countering the Great Recession, however, and since Novemember 2010 the unemployment rate went down from 9.8 % to 5.5%. Thus, the Fed did do a sufficient amount to lower unemployment during the Great Recession. (https://research.stlouisfed.org...)

In conclusion, the Federal Reserve fufills its mandate to
"1)To promote sustainable growth,
2) To maintain high levels of employment,
3) To stabilitze prices to help preserve the purchasing power of the dollar
4) moderate long-term interest rates.

I have also rebutted all of my opponents points, demonstrating that Fed leaders can be kept in check via impeachment, that inflation is not neccessarily a bad thing by indicating a growing economy, and that the Federal Reserve has been effective in reducing unemployment during the Great Recession. (I have also demonstrated in the last Round how the United States is the largest economy in the world.) Thus, the Federal Reserve should not be abolished, for it has fufilled its obligations.

(1) Yes, they're not elected (though the Board is appointed by the president and approved by the Senate, and regional bank presidents, like presidents of any private institution, are voted on by their Boards of Directors). This is actually a good thing because it *insulates* them from the political process and short-term political pressures to pursue a time-inconsistency problem of higher-then-necessary inflation, only to pull it back post-election -- the political business cycle, in other words. This is backed by extensive empirical work, most notably Alesina and Summers (1993).

(2) Yes, there has -- so? The dual mandate is maximum sustainable employment and price stability, and price stability is defined around 2 percent, which is right around where we want it -- though we haven't hit that target because it's a flawed goal; we should be targeting NGDP, or at the very least raise the inflation target or our tolerance for inflation because overheating may be necessary to ameliorating the post-recession fall in potential output.

(3) Also false, and the myriad of evidence shows that QE raised unemployment by 125 basis points and inflation by 50 basis points. Further, had the Fed done nothing -- including but not limited to LSAPS, but also cutting the fed funds target range to 0 to 1/4 percent -- we'd be in a Depression, a la the Depression of the 30s: i.e., the last time the Fed did nothing. It could have done a heck of a lot more, and should have, but that would've required a commitment to a higher future price level -- which contradicts the above convention two, which is dumb by itself because 0 percent inflation is positively loony.

So, yes, I wish people who don't know what they're talking about wouldn't opine on things over their head. Alas, the Paulbots persist....and their new savior is announcing today that he's running for president.

Reasons for voting decision: Gracious concession, so I think a 3-1 split is appropriate. I don't think this debate would've been interesting had it continued, though, mainly because of the simplicity of CON's arguments. When your entire argument can be refuted by a basic Econ 101 textbook, I think it's abundantly clear that you're in far over your depth.